The visit of the sister and other things...

Hi all,

Still no news on whether I’m going to be carrying on working past the end of April or not. I really want to know, because if I’m not staying on, it means that I’ll be entering the last three week cycle of my timetable next week (Easter hols take up two weeks of April), so I want to know whether to say goodbye to some of the classes or not! It would also be useful to know for other reasons.

I had a real life written translation (as opposed to a translation you do in the classroom for your teacher) to do this week, which I enjoyed a lot. One of the teachers had asked for my help, because she had been asked for help by her God-daughter to translate a text about osteopathy, and it was a bit complicated. I loved the challenge and the fact that it was going to help out this really nice teacher and that it would be of use in the real world. She was very pleased when I sent it to her.

Last night around 10.50pm, I heard drumming outside. It was a really loud drumming of many drums, and I couldn’t see anything when I looked out my window, but I could tell which direction it was coming from. It struck me as being very strange, due to the time of night, and continued for over half an hour, I don’t know when it stopped. The drumming in itself was quite tasteful, but it annoyed me that it was so late at night and I didn’t know the reason for it!

Katie came to stay with me for four days from Saturday to Wednesday, which was chouette ! Where should I start with everything we got up to? On Saturday the lovely one arrived and I’d managed to make it to the right point on the platform. She was so tired out that she’d been sleeping, to wake up to an announcement by a chap who got his numbers mixed up in English and said 8 o’clock-something instead of 18-something and she got worried she’d missed Lille and ended up in Belgium! We chilled out with pizza, salad and a film for the night. On Sunday we had a bit of a lie-in and made our way to Wazemmes market, which had been recommended to me and I hadn’t had the chance to go until this point. There were hundreds of stalls, selling clothes, jewellery, plants, and of course plenty of food. There were also hundreds of people, and what felt like hundreds of exits when we came to leave!!

Later on, we ate lunch and I went to lead youth group while Katie stayed at mine and wrote an application letter for something for the summer. I popped back to collect her for the evening service which was really good, and we stayed on to eat carbonara and ice cream, so I had the opportunity to introduce her to many of my friends at Christchurch :)

On Monday, we had a walk out around Lille, ate lunch, and then I disappeared off for the afternoon to go and teach while Katie chilled out in my flat. It did her good to have a bit of space to herself because things are often ‘go go go’ for her at university. I returned and we met up with Nathan for a coffee, before the pair of us ate a nice meal at a restaurant.

On Tuesday, we went for a walk around Lille zoo, the most memorable part being seeing two rhinos fighting big time, it was impressive! It wasn’t just a play fight either, as I had first thought, we saw blood emerge on both of their faces. We wondered if a keeper would ever try and come and split it up, and, on quick second thoughts, concluded probably not! You’d be crushed pretty quickly if you tried to intervene…

Following this we enjoyed a beautiful cake each from ‘Meert’, an old and posh boulangerie/patisserie, and we went shopping around Lille. We returned to my flat to do a few bits and bobs, before welcoming the GBU for the evening. I was very pleased that Katie was up for participating in the GBU and meeting my friends there, because even though the group is very nice, I knew she would be out of her comfort zone with all the French language going on. As it happened, my Canadian-American friend, Frances, revelled in the opportunity to translate the Bible study for her and her level of French is better than mine, so I was happy to let her do it. After the Bible study we enjoyed eating together and some of the others tried a bit of their English out.

On Wednesday morning, I was up and out for work before Katie knew it was Wednesday, and we met in the city at 11.30 to spend the last couple of hours together before her departure. We went for lunch in ‘Paul’, a bakery and it was delicious.

So there you have it! I think I’m going to go away now, that’s enough of me for one go.

Love to you,
Fiona x

A busy 5 days

The day I turned 22

Last Tuesday night I had my friend Nicola to sleep over, so that I wouldn’t be on my own on my birthday morning (If that sounds a bit silly to you…I would’ve been ok if I’d been on my own but I had the opportunity to not be, so I embraced it!). We took things leisurely and I opened my cards and phoned my parents (bit of a surprise for Dad at work at 8.15am in the morning, but once he got over his confusion he was on top form!). We went into Lille for a late breakfast at a boulangerie. Then the plan was then to do some shopping, but we’d been a bit too leisurely so we only had time to go into one shop before it was time to head back to mine to have lunch (I needed to be at my French lesson by 2pm)! The morning was just lovely; Nicola and I get along really well. From 2-5pm I went to my French lesson at the university and that was good as usual. Then I popped home to have a peek at the Internet and get ready for the evening.

I had invited 11 friends out for a meal in a restaurant to celebrate, but we ended up as 10 including me, as there were 2 missing (one due to illness, the other miscommunication). It was such an enjoyable evening and I feel so blessed by God to have been able to have that many friends happy to celebrate with me after only being here for five and a half months. They came from 4 different places, and were a mixture of Anglophones and Francophones, but I was confident the mix would work well because they’re all so lovely. And it did! :)

It was always going to be a bit strange being in a different country for my birthday for the first time, but I felt at home because my friends here are great and I still got lots of nice cards and messages from my favourite island! (Except my Mum and Dad’s parcel still hasn’t arrived, so if you know of its whereabouts, please do give it a kick in the right direction!!)

London for a day

Thursday morning I was up bright and early (or should that be dark and early?!) because I had to leave my flat at 4.45am in order to meet Laurence (friend and colleague) to go in the car to Armentières, for a school trip to London. I walked to Laurence’s and along the way saw something I wasn’t impressed with…plenty of fresh man tracks…by that, I mean there were numerous suspect liquid trails coming away from various sides and corners of buildings, particularly next to the theatre. Poor theatre. It hadn’t even been a weekend night the night before!

I’m not sure how I did manage such an early start, but I did, and the excitement began. We met up with the other English teachers and the kids (around 50) on the coach and after waiting for the late-comers and one who hadn’t turned up for 20 minutes which we went without, we set off – 5.50am. One of the boys when stepping on had said that this time in the morning was ‘not human’ and I sympathised with him! Anyway…journey over land and through the Eurotunnel and we got to our destination, the Tower of London, around 10.30 (British time) and spent a couple of hours going round in groups. Unfortunately, the kids (despite being a good bunch) didn’t seem that interested, and I was ready with some interesting stuff to tell my group about various things to do with the tower, but I didn’t think they’d listen so didn’t bother after one or two attempts. I really enjoyed the visit, but the kids were in need of something like a questionnaire so they could be more active and involved. I suppose it was natural that I was more interested than them, as it’s my history and I can understand what’s written (although I did look to read the French information paragraphs on more than one occasion!).

By 12.30pm, namely 1.30pm French time, the kids were really hungry, so we ate our sandwiches then proceeded to take a long walk along the River Thames, for an hour and a quarter. The kids aren’t used to walking that far and were pretty tired out by the end of it, poor mites were complaining next to me and I couldn’t even tell them how far we had left! I was a bit disgruntled as well because my shoulder bag had broken and I had to carry it around for the rest of the day, but thankfully my feet weren’t hurting. Destination: Covent Gardens. Mission: Let the kids loose and relax for a bit! We waved the pupils off to do some shopping for two hours and the teachers and I went for a coffee (In a crêperie, no less!). I selected a smoothie to drink and the other teachers all thought I was mad cos it was really cold…next time I’ll play it safe and have a hot chocolate I think, they really weren’t impressed! We then split up to have a mooch around ourselves, I stayed with Laurence.

We went in to M&S, joy of joys, and I bought a BLT sarnie, salt and vinegar crisps and yummy cookie to go with the apple I already had for the journey back. We got back to Lille at around 10.30pm, so a very long day! We were pretty cold during the day, being outside for so long, but I am reliably informed by my Dad that it was the best day to go as it was much windier before and wet the day after. I’m very pleased I had the opportunity to go, to see a school trip from a teacher’s point of view and for the trip itself, but it wasn’t as enjoyable as I thought it would be.

Friday/Saturday

The following Friday I taught at the other school all day long and was pleased with how the day went considering how tired I was. On Saturday I spent some time with a German teacher – ambiguous…is she German or does she teach German or both?! – answer…she teaches German. We had lunch with her husband at their house, then we took a trip out to Belgium for a couple of hours (I was bothered we’d get stopped as I didn’t have my passport, but not really much border control goes on where we crossed) and we returned to their house for a cup of tea and video of the grandchildren (one of their passions!) before she brought me back to Lille and went off to do something. They are such a welcoming couple and it’s really nice they invited me over.

Le cirque

The highlight of Sunday was going to the circus in the afternoon! I learnt just before Christmas that one of my colleagues at Pérenchies has a hobby as a trapeze artist! This, of course, intrigued me greatly and she said that she’d let me know when she was going to be in a show and I could go and watch her. So I said that I’d love to and I would. This Sunday the opportunity came round and I was there. It was a smaller tent than I had envisaged but it still fit a good 250/300 spectators in. It had a community feel to it, very friendly. I was sat among a reserved area for school because one of the teachers had organised tickets. So I was next to some of my pupils and their families and also some teachers and their families. It was strange to see them out of school. Brigitte, my colleague, did very well in her act. Amazing flexibility and balance (more than me I’d imagine and she’s mid-40s at a guess!). I was actually quite attracted by the idea of doing the trapeze myself! They make it look easy though. The show lasted 2 hours plus an interval. I got a lovely surprise to actually see some of my pupils in the show too! I was really impressed by them and will tell them so when I see them.

Well that’s all for now,
Fiona x

P.S. I’m sorry, it must be really hard to keep up with all these teachers flying round everywhere! Photos coming soon hopefully.

Squash, a swimming pool and a surprise...

A couple of hours ago the one thing which would’ve made me really happy was a glass of apple and blackcurrant squash. Unfortunately I had none. This is the kind of thing which sometimes hits you in a foreign country! I have way too much to tell you in one go, so for the sake of your eyes and my fingers/brain, I’m going to try and catch up with the last week or so in a couple of posts. I’ll just put the interesting bits in, but I have been working as well!

Unusually I didn’t have to work a week last Thursday (4th), so I went to ‘La musée de la Piscine’ (‘The Swimming Pool Museum’) with a French lady I met back in December on the trip to Rochester. In Roubaix, where the museum is situated, there used to be a large textile industry. The museum is in the original building they used for a swimming pool for factory workers and they’ve kept the original layout. So you can see showers and bath tubs and there’s a shallow and thin pool stretching down the middle (they have filled in a lot of the pool, but it’s nice the way they’ve done it). There were interesting paintings and sculptures and textiles there and we sat down for a drink and cake stop half way through, so it was lovely.

On Friday night (5th), I celebrated the birthday of one of my friends, Emma-Liisa, round someone’s house (not a typo, a nice Finnish name). Nicola was meeting Emma-Liisa in order to ‘go to a restaurant together’ and she faked a bad ankle, in order to merit going to Sarah’s flat to get a bandage. At this point, Emma-Liisa suspected there’d be a group of us waiting for her, but when no one was there and Sarah was more concerned about Nicola’s ankle than Emma-Liisa’s birthday, she doubted her former thought. When Nicola and Sarah slipped the word ‘duster’ into the conversation (yeah random, but impressive!), we all jumped out and said ‘Surprise!’. The poor girl got quite a shock because people and balloons descended from stairs up opposite her and me and another girl jumped out from the curtain directly above and behind her. The two of us behind the curtain nearly gave the game away as we’d started to giggle, but thankfully she hadn’t heard. The evening proceeded with nibbles, chatter and games – great!

On Saturday I had a nice dose of fresh air, with a walk around the Parc du héron with Nathan. Then on Sunday evening I organised a bowling evening for the GBU, which went down a storm. We ate at my place first and then had two games of bowling for a good price. It was great fun to enjoy some time together outside of the usual Tuesday night slot. This isn't the whole group, but I think it's fair to say we're the regulars. :)

I’ll be back asap as I know you probably want news of my birthday, but I’ve got so much going on at the minute and I’m very tired out by it all.

Fiona x

To Belgium and beyond...

Further to last week, Thursday and Friday did go much better at school thankfully. I also have two ‘Yes’s from the Heads of the schools, so my request to stay, with their letters included, is sitting by the door ready to post.

Last Saturday I went to Belgium for the day, to Gent and Bruges, with a group from Christchurch. I had wanted to go on a day trip to Belgium since nearly the beginning as it’s so easy from here, and this day didn’t let me down. There were sixteen of us and we went over in cars. First, we took a stroll around the town and cathedral in Gent. It is a very pretty town, even when you have to dodge the building works going on in the middle! Then we moved on to Bruges, again very nice, we walked around and stopped off for a late lunch in a friendly little pub.

To my amazement there wasn’t much interest in the chocolate shops coming from my friends, but I decided to go in to one to get a little something for someone (Can’t mention who, they haven’t received it yet…and sorry I couldn’t buy you all chocolate!) We wandered into another shop where they offered us a taste of a nice raspberry jam filled biscuit, which I happily tried, and liked, but didn’t buy! In the same shop there were chocolate ‘olives’. At first, one of my friends hadn’t understood that they were chocolates made out to look like olives and they didn’t actually have olives inside, so she turned to me and exclaimed at what she had come across, to which I swiftly looked for an explanation and found one. Almonds or some other nut covered in chocolate, covered in an iced coating, painted various shades of green and brown called ‘olives’. Then we carried on the joke in trying (and almost succeeding) to kid our other friends that the Belgians have some strange olives in a confectionery shop!

Going to Belgium and seeing so many things written in Flemish made me feel pretty lost (even though it was quite touristic and I knew I could speak English to people there). It made me very glad to realise how much I have learnt of the French language. I also thought that how I see Flemish must be how some people see French or English and so I need to be sensitive to that when other people don’t know these languages.

After returning from Belgium, it was straight on to a youth group outing to play a laser game in the evening. This was lots of fun (I always enjoy that game!) and played in good spirits, even if I did receive some death threats at the end from one girl I’d hit a good number of times! My team came first, which was a plus :)

Sunday was a very pleasant day, going to l’Église du Triolo in the morning, lunch with a French family, youth group prep and then Christchurch evening service/meal! On Monday evening I had a lovely chat with my sister which gave me a real boost and also Mum and Dad.

Next Thursday I have been given permission (after initially being overlooked) to join a school trip to the Tower of London, which I am very happy about, even if it means getting up at stupid-o’clock! It’s a nice group of kids, I know a good number of them and the Tower of London is one of my favourite attractions.

Over and out for now,

Fiona x